Poll: Americans More Ashamed Than Proud of Clinton Presidency

(CNSNews.com) - As President Clinton enters the final year of his two-term presidency, most Americans still view the legacy of his administration with an awareness of his accomplishment but a sincere disappointment in his failures.

According to a new Zogby America poll of 879 likely voters nationwide, 41.7 percent said they were ashamed to have Bill Clinton as President while 38.7 percent said they were proud that Clinton had held the highest office in the land. A minority, 19.6 percent, felt Clinton either fell somewhere in the middle or had no opinion, good or bad, on Clinton's presidential status.

Respondents gave Clinton a 50.4 percent personal rating and also gave him a 51.8 percent job performance rating, both up slightly from a similar survey conducted by Zogby in September.

Clinton's largest drop came in ranking among the last eleven Presidents. He fell to seventh place, behind George Bush, dropping nearly ten percentage points since last year's survey in February, 1999.

Clinton also received the second-worst Below Average/Failure rating of all the Presidents at 33.8 percent, ranking him just behind Richard Nixon at 34.6 percent.

By the way, the president ranking first in the survey was Franklin D. Roosevelt while Gerald R. Ford, who occupied the oval office from 1974-76, following Nixon's resignation, had the lowest overall rating.

The nationwide survey, conducted on January 4th and 5th, has a sampling error of plus or minus three percent.

A majority of respondents to the survey (62.7 percent) felt the country was headed in the right direction while 27.9 percent said the nation was on the wrong track.

Regarding Election 2000, Zogby poll respondents gave Democratic candidate Al Gore a comfortable lead over Bill Bradley, 45.5 percent to 25.5 percent, while George W. Bush maintains a healthy lead on his closest Republican competitor, John McCain, 55.5 percent to 11.9 percent.

If the election for President was held this week, according to the poll, Bush would be our new leader. He currently holds the lead on Gore, 49.5 percent to 38.8 percent, and on Bradley, 45.6 percent to 41.2 percent.